Weird Toolkit v1.14.8 activity

Hi Everybody,

First up... my C-Bus network has been working perfectly for a long long time... and it's STILL working fine even though what I now see with C-Bus Toolkit has me very confused.

I only fired up C-Bus Toolkit today because I'm planning on expanding my C-Bus network into the last section of my home that still has traditional light switched on the walls!

The first hurdle I faced is that my 5500CN seems to have died. Not responding reliably to pings and Toolkit kept on having a hernia trying to scan my network. So I quickly deployed a 5500PC (I still have com ports on my Win7 office PC) and it all seemed OK.

But now, a lot of my units are reporting that they no longer have serial numbers?? The "Units In Database" pane shows the serial numbers previously read from various Units, but the "Units On Network" pane reports "No serial #".

I do have some older C-Bus Units that actually don't have serial numbers (like my original 5500PC, some single relay units in fluoro battens, HomeMinder, etc.).

The other strange thing is that all these units that SHOULD have serial numbers and don't... also report that the C-Bus Voltage as 0.5V!!

eg.
http://i.imgur.com/YII10YL.jpg

I've been to some of these units that report 0.5V in C-Bus Toolkit and actually measured the network voltage and it's showing all OK... ~29 V across the network.

This is what is showing up on a Diagnostic scan.
http://i.imgur.com/Nmhk84G.jpg

If I was experiencing issues with the operation of my C-Bus network, I might be able to track down a physical problem... but it's working fine.

Any ideas what might be going on?

Michael.

 

Hi Michael
Check Toolkit release notes regarding your 5500CN.

 

I did see mention that the Control Systems IP Utility no longer supports/configures the 5000CN... but I think it's problem is separate to that.
My network switch (Mikrotik) reports that it's physically connected OK, but it just doesn't seem to have connectivity. It responds to one ping (maybe) and then nothing.

The Lantroinix software cannot find it either.

The power supply measured fine, but I did try another one... just in case, same results. Tried a direct connection (crossover cable) to my laptop, same results.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\michaelc>ping 192.168.0.6

Pinging 192.168.0.6 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.0.6: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.6:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost = 3 (75% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 2ms

C:\Users\michaelc>ping 192.168.0.6

Pinging 192.168.0.6 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.0.10: Destination host unreachable.

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.6:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost = 3 (75% loss),

C:\Users\michaelc>

 

Thanks for the replies.

I still have no idea what happened... but this morning when I decided to tackle the problem once more, everything seems to have settled down.

The network scan was quick, all the units with serial numbers report their serial number correctly AND the correct C-Bus voltage. Very puzzling!

I do have one unit that is now reporting a C-Bus voltage of 13.9V. This is on a network "string" with another unit after it, and this other unit is reporting a correct C-Bus voltage. It's an outdoor input unit under my carport (inside a Clipsal weatherproof housing), might be some corrosion on the terminal block pins.

My 5500CN seems to be terminal. I can use the Lantronix DeviceInstaller to find it and see all the familiar parameters... but any attempt to use it to talk to my C-Bus network, or to flash new firmware, or bring up it's own web page, or even ping it... all fails.

Michael.

 

Hi Michael
That's quite a network you have there.
There seems to be several PCI devices and a CBus wireless gateway.
I wonder if some of the results are due to those things eg lots of traffic from a 3rd party device or perhaps devices connected to CBus with the wireless gateway?

Ashleigh has me wondering now if my CNI was in fact dead when I broke it to pieces for a look.
Too late now.
It was a bit of a frustrating device to set up but super reliable for the 5 years it lasted.
I've been really happy using a Moxa serial device server connected to a RS232 PCI since then.